


Final Words

by Kisuru



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6578002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisuru/pseuds/Kisuru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Esther wanted was someone to hear her final words on stage. Kayleigh is more than willing to listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



_Back in 1934, a woman named Esther Bircher was cast in a star lead in the play War in the Country. But, while performing on stage, she mysteriously succumbed to a death on stage during her final solo song. No test results could find the reason._

Kayleigh surveyed the faded sticky note in her hands. For many years she had been an admirer of plays, constantly keeping that as her one constant as she travelled along the country. The marvelous world of theater was a craft she could find anywhere. The customs, the makeup, the energetic air that permeated every inch of the theater until the watcher was practically hanging off the edge of their seat in excitement… these things were aspects she never tired of.  
  
Kayleigh breathed in slowly then out in a huff of air. Opening her eyes, she was positive that no ghost had been there recently… but the traces of one certainly lingered. She was far too excited to keep herself completely on track. Even under the lighting, hazel eyes glimmered hopefully.  
  
Moving on, Kayleigh focused each point from the ceiling to the theater’s backstage. She stretched out her senses, eyes closed. No spiritual presence seemed to be here. While she had never been the strongest at grasping the strings of a ghost’s presence, she had gradually improved over the last two years. Constantly accepting jobs for her hunter organization sped up the process.  
  
While velvet red curtains would normally be snapped closed for the night the theater stage was now spare without props. The theater’s usual blinding stage lights had been dimmed to a faint golden circle around her shining directly in the middle of the stage. No rounds of applause would be heard tonight; the soft seats in the balcony and the lower sections were all vacant.  
  
People of all ages clamored to throw themselves seen in the spotlight. Seeing it without someone there was cold, empty. She had never been fit to perform herself minus the drama club she had frequented back in her bustling high school days. Back in those days, many of her classmates had thrown around names to aspire to.  
  
Esther Bircher, the ghost in this theater, had coincidently been one name.  
  
Kayleigh laughed at the pure irony. She would meet an actress none of her old friends would dream of. Before taking this job under her wing she had heard rumors that, in this town, a peaceful but lively ghost had been spotted in this building. Combining it into one of her teenage textbook role models had been only a fleeting passing; she had only known seeing Esther’s name written on a trophy in the back hall. What could have been more of a brilliant coincidence! Meeting an actress that had taken the country by storm decades ago should be a lifelong dream for anyone. Customs of those days had been long forgotten. At first she had expected less than this. But having more and more on her plate was well worth any trouble.  
  
But it’ll be fine! Kayleigh thought, rubbing her gloved hands together. The bitter chill of winter seeped into the hall without the heaters on. But that doesn’t matter, because I always get to the bottom of all my cases no matter what!  
  
Kayleigh had ignored most information before coming in from the theater manager. In fact, she would rather cut to the chase and hear the reasons from the ghost herself rather than the boring drip and dry explanations from someone who had not known the actress in the first place. She wanted to meet this previous actress without any firsthand memories skewing her impression. Approaching the supernatural knowing all the facts was pointless!  
  
Kayleigh pointed it towards the stage. She snugged black earphones on her ears, a device that would help her hear any spiritual voices if she would call out. Next, she pulled a pink magnifier out of her carry-on bag and flipped it open. Her hunter friends had laughed at her (because really, pink for a work tool?) but she had scoffed them off. In reality it looked like a simple magnifier but was instead a wavelength tracker. It forced a hologram projector of a ghost’s body if her soul was too weak to emit the right color wavelengths, or appear right in the open. Many ghosts were like this, and Kayleigh was weaker at detecting than she liked to admit at the current time.  
  
One day, she would be stronger.  
  
Kayleigh kept rapt attention on the stage. Besides that everything was larger, no one appeared right away. Near static flowed through her ears; nothing of interest had bothered to show up and give the woman-ghost rumor any merit. The theater manager had explained she always appears at the exact moment of her death—8:45pm sharp—and nothing the actors did to stop her from interrupting their important performances detoured her.  
  
And they were ridiculous! Meeting the ghost was far more thrilling than curbing her efforts. What did she have to say in the first place if she kept returning? Just to encourage the ghost, she was all the way situated in the very back of the theater to give her breathing space. Even if a ghost appeared on stage, noticing her would take a few minutes at the least.  
  
_I’ve been waiting for fifteen extra minutes,_ Kayleigh mused. She flipped her sleeve up for the fifteenth time and checked the time on her digital watch. 9:00 sharp. _Does she realize I’m here and doesn’t want to come out? Doesn’t she realize it’s the third Saturday of the month and she has to keep her own schedule? No… remember, she came out with a whole audience of people last November. I’m just one tonight._  
  
Snapping up another piece of popcorn from the bag on the seat next to her, Kayleigh took a break. She lifted a photograph that stuck out of her carry-on bag. For the day and age, the picture was dog-eared at the sides with age and cursive handwriting ink stains she could not decipher smudged on the back. Whoever instructed to put it away in the theater’s safety albums had been rather careless. The image on the picture was as clear and crisp despite half fuzzy.  
  
Esther was not smiling in the picture. No, she had a full-toothed grin amid a slightly plump, dimpled face. The bones in her cheeks were high and lead nicely to a tight bun holding brown ringlets of hair up. Kayleigh could imagine those lips emitting the sweetest melody in the world back when her voice shook this theater down to its very core. Her arms were spread out above her head in a well-timed shot of her leaping across the stage like a ballerina.  
  
“Usually, when I look back at old movies this isn’t what I normally see,” Kayleigh realized. Esther did not have the usual charm that women of plays had back then… but something about that made it all the more memorizing. Maybe it was just something she saw in her expression. “She’s very pretty, so I’m glad that wasn’t the case. But it’s not that that would draw anyone to her. She’s sort of… infectious, that air of confidence. I bet if you looked her in the eyes, you would see something the camera couldn’t even catch.”  
  
Kayleigh was confident. She always was. Meeting Esther in her prime would have been fantastical in and of itself. Believing that stubbornness had kept her in the world of the living would not be impossible by any means. Whether good or evil ghosts refused to leave unless it was their wish. Nothing on Earth, human or angel alike, could wrestle a ghost under control. For her, that sheer willpower to conjure a soul to life was positively enthralling.

  
But why would she haunt this place? Was she sad or upset that she was dead and could no longer perform? Did she just not want to abandon the essence of the work she had loved while she had been alive?  
  
_Why did she choose tonight to be late to her own play if all she did was recite her lines and suddenly stop short of the finish?_ Kayleigh wondered. She tapped the armrest next to her, thoroughly stumped by this much. Lines that repeated endlessly into a void under layers of makeup applied years ago that still hid everything.  
  
Kayleigh, for the slightest of moments, was too engrossed in the possibilities of Esther’s death to readily see what came next. A clattered erupted up on stage, and a misty ball of dark grey and faint blue flickers convalesced into existence.  
  
Sitting up in her chair far too quickly, she slammed her elbow into her popcorn carton and it toppled to the sticky floor. But that was not her concern. The wavering ball of light continued to descend from the ceiling in quivering line, a rainbow wandering away from the dark storm clouds of the ceiling and appearing smack-dab in the spotlight.  
  
And then the form materialized. The color and shape were still fuzzy but very much human in all respects; Kayleigh could instantly find the similarities between her and the Esther in the photo. Except, however, this Esther was far more gaunt in her death state and significantly less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with her hair braided bun than she had been in the picture. Now… now, an isolated distance had taken residency in her expression.  
  
Esther stood still, her face transfixed on something far away that no one else could see. She adjusted the magnifier and evaluated the rest of the room swinging it back and forth. The two of them were alone. Kayleigh glanced in where Esther’s general direction towards the high balcony seemed to be, but darkness swallowed up the room in a swath of shadows on the back wall.  
  
Frowning, she shook her head. Waiting around would be too difficult for her to stand when she could barely control herself now, and she knew that as fact. Ducking behind the seats to inspect the situation before hopping in, Kayleigh scooted around the rows to get closer to the front.  
  
“Why? Why aren’t you there?” Esther asked. The tone of her voice was raspy and torn like the winds of a hurricane, but sweet and delicate like fine, melted chocolate.  
  
Kayleigh paused in her tracks. Who should be there? Was someone supposed to be in the balcony? Would that person even still be alive, or wrinkled with old age now?  
  
“I thought you said you would be there,” Esther whispered to herself, “why didn’t you come like you said you would…”  
  
Beads of tears formed at the edges of her eyes. She fell to her knees, a noiseless sound that did not reverberate around the stage one bit. She covered her face with her hands, and silent tears began to trickle down her face. Well, this was no longer a situation to keep caution. Instead of looking for a set of stairs on the sides Kayleigh finally reached the stage. She pushed herself up by the elbows on the platform.  
  
Kayleigh held up her hands palm-up for a moment. Approaching her head-on like this might be dangerous, but she was hardly radiating any fumes of anger or viciousness like some ghosts would. Just sorrow. Thanking herself for slipping on slippers to keep herself hidden longer, she crept as close as possible. Not too fast, though she had to time this exactly right…  
  
Shock washed through Kayleigh as startling blue eyes whipped up to meet her. Esther looked up at her sharply, critical and strong. Kayleigh almost doubled backward off the stage again, but she caught herself in time. Esther gave her a confused once-over.  
  
“Who are you? Don’t you know you can’t be on the stage when there’s a live performance going on!?” Esther yelled. She balled her hands into fists and planted them on her hips, severe but resolute.  
  
Taken aback, Kayleigh stood her ground. No, she was not a hostile spirit, but she would… wait… Esther thought there was a performance going on _right now_. Kayleigh weighed this information carefully before nodding to herself. She would have to play along, and she most certainly did not want to see someone like this so upset.  
  
“But the performance is only about to begin,” Kayleigh said slowly. Any result would be good if she just… well, being honest was the best policy, they always said. “I’m just a big fan of yours, so…” She hurriedly dug in her pocket, juggling her magnifier in her hand. Pulling out a scrunched piece of paper she brandished a pen. “I really would love your autograph if I could have it!”  
  
_Really? An autograph is my best idea? I do have to play along._ She rolled her eyes at herself, but she could hardly say she would have done it any other way. _She doesn’t realize she’s dead. Now, what’s the best way to remind her?_ Kayleigh thought with a hint of dread not for herself but Esther. This would be more complicated than planned. Not undoable. Ghosts who shielded their hearts from the truth were common.  
  
Esther’s face scrunched up slightly. Lost and confused, she peered out at the non-existent audience and then back to Kayleigh’s hopeful smile back.  
  
“You still should wait until the end of the performance to come up here,” Esther chastised her, though it was obvious there was still a swell of pride in her voice. She stood to her feet; her previous sadness was ignored within a minute. Her hand reached straight through the paper, and the pen, but this did not seem to bother her earlier. She scribbled in the thin air as though as she had both firmly in her hands. “I can’t let my adorning house of patrons be disappointed.”  
  
An actress, especially an actress with the world at her fingertips, would have wanted to be seen and heard. Any attention she could have acquired she would have craved until the urges were far too intoxicating, and Kayleigh hoped she could at least stroke that ego a bit to get her to confess some secrets. It was the least selfish of the selfish kind; Esther had always strived to make her audience clap wildly for encore after encore. People would enjoy, and she would provide.  
  
Even though she the two of them were the same age (Esther did not a motherly vibe about her) Kayleigh flushed. “I know, I’m sorry! But I love your work!” Which was true to a degree; she wanted to learn so much still about her, and she could feel the tightness in her chest at the thought of hearing her personal life story out. “Can you tell me… tell me who you meant a second ago? Who was supposed to be here?”  
  
Befuddlement clouded her eyes for a moment again. Kayleigh held her breath. In the next heartbeat, Esther handed her the invisible autograph. She smiled at the token of her gratitude nonetheless and imagined the beautiful, curvaceous signature that would be there if she could still write in the realm of the living. She pretended to pocket it and her real pad of paper and pen while waiting patiently for Esther to respond.  
  
“My friend,” Esther recalled. “She… we were best friend, Linda and I.”  
  
““Linda?” Kayleigh echoed. She adjusted her fluffy, brown hat, wondering just want trail this would lead her on. “Who’s that? Was she someone you knew? And she said she would wait in the balcony up there?”  
  
Esther nodded. “In the very front. But… she’s not there. I don’t want to start without her…” She patted down the evening dress she wore. In her current state it was grey and washed out, but years ago it might have even been blue. “We’ve been through so much together here in this theater. She told me yesterday that she would watch me because she can’t perform. Linda wanted the star role in this play, but they picked me over her. She fell and broke her ankle.”  
  
Ah. Perhaps that was the reason she had been late. She had either gone to see her friend, or she had just been extra trouble tonight for whatever reason. Perhaps 8:45 had been stated incorrectly as well.  
  
Kayleigh’s lips pursed. This memory… if her memory was so scrambled, why did she remember Linda so well? Had she really been such a great friend to her, and had Esther really missed her immediately after dying so much that it was imprinted in her shifting memories? Had she regretted not seeing Linda or apologizing to her before she was unable to talk to her one last time?  
  
Kayleigh would have, but… Esther was not her.  
  
“But… Linda…” Esther’s voice went horse. Her eyes widened to the size of mini suns. She dropped, and then knelt, the skirt of her evening dress doubling around her legs like a rope tying her to the floorboards.  
  
Kayleigh joined her on the ground. She knelt at her side. If only she could touch her, she would have grabbed her hand and lightly had her stare into her eyes for confirmation, or encouragement. That was the one thing about being a ghost hunter that annoyed her until no end. “But what happened? What did she do?”  
  
“She… she…” Esther choked on her words then. She dug her hands into her dress and flickered in and out of existence.  
  
Kayleigh worried she would all but disappear, but she did not. Somehow she had not even noticed her magnifier, and Kayleigh was half glad she didn’t have to explain. She clicked the notches on the side a few times to get the right wavelength. One day, when she was more skilled at all this, she would be able to see ghosts without the help of any technology.  
  
“She hurt you?” Kayleigh guessed. She should not remind her at all of it if it would prove something nasty. But to get to the bottom of this mystery she had to scrap an old scab and make the blood flow again.  
  
Esther grit her teeth. “No… no… she would never hurt me, but that look she gave me before I came out on stage for the final scene… she gave me that drink. And I thought it tasted bitter, but she said it was a special medicine mixture to fix my nerves right up. But…” Esther gasped. She shook her head and pounded the floor with her hand. “What am I saying? The last scene hasn’t started… we still have time, I would know about that… I always wanted to hurt her for how she killed me… that pain in my chest felt like it would burst my heart right open. And that smirk she showered down on me in that balcony… I wanted to… to…”  
  
Her words were a disarray of mix-matched sentences, a muddle devoid of coherency and purpose. But the message underlying it was still clear as the bright blue sky.  
  
Kayleigh’s hand hovered over Esther’s shoulder. She could not feel her, but her words hit her straight on like a violin’s slow but rise in crescendo. Based on that short description, she could uncover what had happened. Never in Kayleigh’s twenty-five years of life had tears sprung to her eyes so quickly and trickled down her cheeks so freely. She could taste the bitter grit of salt staining her lips and falling to her chin.  
  
So she could remember that this play had happened years ago, but she didn’t know it had ended. Because, in all fairness, the play had never really ended after her death as it should have. In the middle of the performance, Esther had dropped dead in front of a horrified audience. The entire play had come to a standstill like a train flipped from the rails. It made sense, and the logic Kayleigh would go along with.  
  
Linda had killed her with poison, or something of the sort, and Esther could not forgive her. She had known her intentions one way or another that Kayleigh would never really understand, probably.  
  
In other words, Esther haunted this theater looking for the person that wanted to perform as badly as she had in this play. Her absolute resignation and depression were too much for her to bear alone.  
  
Curbing her anger would be best to keep her sane and relaxed from the pressures of so many years long elapsed. Not even Kayleigh wanted Esther to remember such awful and devastating things. She had obviously not known Linda, or her relationship to Esther. Kayleigh would probably never know what had transpired between the two of them. But from the steering of the conversation, Linda might have not been the most kind-hearted person she had claimed to be.  
  
Had jealousy really been at play?  
  
“I’m sure Linda will love to see it!” she chirped anyway, changing the subject. Linda seemed to be a bad place to start, and obviously there were some unresolved memories that would need to be ironed out. One step at a time. If she followed her previous behavior Esther’s thoughts would rearrange themselves and her unsettled revenge would be all but brushed to the side. “What is this play about? Can you tell me anything about it before I watch?”  
  
Esther seemed to sober up. She blinked once. Twice. Stared at her hands. Grimacing, she stood to her feet, and Kayleigh followed her back up. She wiped at her own eyes to rid of the tears even though Esther’s simply disappeared.  
  
“The play was about a war,” she began. Getting into character, Esther opened her arms wide. She glanced around as if searching for the background props that should accompany her words, or her background dangers. “It was about a small time farm girl thrown into the fiery hell that is wartime in her peaceful countryside—”  
  
“Interesting!” Kayleigh exclaimed, clapping her hands. She instantly shut her mouth tight when she realized how abrupt that must have sounded. Wartime, death—so many mysteries unraveled in a play! Maybe it was a regular concept. But still.  
  
“—and she has learn how to cope with death all by herself. It was written during the Enlightenment years as a coming of reason play for women. The girl battles a lot of ideals about the time about women’s rights. She was unsuited to even take care of anyone else but herself, but she took care of the survivors and shows that, despite her gender, a woman's place is not just the domestic private sphere at home. She can survive by herself. And…” Esther's eyes scrunched up as he tried to think. Her teeth merely covered her lips for a moment, and she rubbed at her forehead. “That’s all I remember, darling. But let me assure you it was a top-rated box office hit that brought this establishment up the ranks.”  
  
“Of course it did!” She did not recall this play specifically from her drama club notes. Or was it called War and a Woman’s Wish? If it was, she might have! “I wish I could have seen it... or will, in a minute!” Close call. Her voice hinged on a sincere bout of sadness.  
  
Kayleigh breathed in an out to recollect herself. _What should I do to steer the conversation_? _Getting too worked up won’t help matters._ The glowing surrounding Esther was like beams of comet fire, too far too touch but all the more marvelous. But she could see… a light of shining in the woman’s eyes that she did not dare speak. A happiness that someone was listening to her, someone was talking to her. Maybe it was something Esther did not realize, but Kayleigh did without hesitation, and she giggled. Esther’s head tilted sideways.  
  
“Yes…” Esther whispered. She stepped back. Without the backdrops, or fancy lighting, she seemed almost daunted for her place in this dark world. “I wanted to bring my character, Marybeth, to life because she reminded me of myself. My mother had escaped a war torn country as a child before moving here. When she was of age she wanted to join the military to protect her country. But she couldn’t. They told her to only join the medical tents because men were only allowed on the front lines. I always felt horrible for her, because my father went to war. She always wanted to be at his side.”  
  
Kayleigh’s heart painfully gripped in her chest. That was awful, but the way of life. It was still like that today. “And Marybeth didn’t care about any of that?” Kayleigh guessed.  
  
“Of course she didn’t!” Esther snapped. She planted her hands on her hips again, and her evening gown train swayed with her rash movement. “She went straight in and saved an entire village with her tactical skills, shooting and fighting like a soldier. It was hard work for her to learn, but she learned all that she needed to from a veteran that wanted her to survive. She makes sure one man was right grateful to her after she dragged him to medical care. And by the end, she knows that her country will be a beautiful place if she can slowly rebuild the countryside she loves.”  
  
Kayleigh imagined a red-faced girl with anger blazing in her eyes. She fought through anything and everything, jumping at every chance to keep the world a better place for not only herself but anyone she could. It was a wish that spanned the tides of time; a classic that Kayleigh was not a bombshell revelation. No wonder she identified so strongly with this character—Esther wanted to make a splash with her acting to catch the world on fire. Others would see her heartfelt feelings, or she had hoped they would.  
  
“But so far, no one has really listened to me,” Esther murmured. She titled her head backwards and stared at the ceiling and a shadow cast over her face. “I never knew if people were coming to my plays because I was so famous, or if they wanted to hear me for what I wanted to tell them in my plays, show them how these characters challenge the status quo of their lives. And…” her voice dropped, “no one has heard me speak for so many years. And when they did see me, they all screamed and ran away. I could never understand when so many people used to love me…”  
  
Being a ghost had caused her so many problems. Sometimes it just was not fair that normal could see ghosts, and she couldn’t! She had to use technology. But she had the power to wade through her trouble and make herself stand up stronger each time. Esther must have had the same belief somewhere in her mind despite the jumbled mess her scattered memories.  
  
Finally, her chest puffed out in determination. No more time for simply loafing around was in order. She was in a theater, after all, and she was supposed to be entertained, right? “Well, I think the play should go on. I think if there's a beginning, there definitely has to be an end.”  
  
Esther’s soul flickered in and out again. A light of pure white illuminated her form, and she placed her hand over her heart. Kayleigh was sure that, for the merest of a millisecond she could see a hole under her hand close up. It confused her. After all, had Esther not died due to poisoning on the stage? Or was it something else? But no… darkness chewed through her dress and slowly repaired itself into the grey, plain evening dress. More than anything, Kayleigh wondered if it was something coming together in Esther’s mind.  
  
“You’ll really listen to me?” Shock. Absolute shock radiated her voice. Esther stared at her, wide-eyed and shaking from head to toe.  
  
“Isn’t that what I’m here for?” Kayleigh asked. She stepped backwards towards the plush seats. “After all, I’m one of your biggest fans, remember? You gave me an autograph. So now I have to listen to your performance. I want to hear the end of the play, so I would love to hear the last song of the night, if you wouldn’t mind. After all, I did come late to the performance!”  
  
A blush blossomed on Esther’s face, heating up in a swell of red. Whether it was embarrassment, or pure gratitude, Kayleigh could not quite identify.  
  
“T —Thank you,” Esther said in a hushed tone. “Nobody’s ever wanted to hear my final words before… and I thought no one would want to listen to me after I fell… and...” Her eyebrows knitted. “I thought everyone was disappointed in me…”  
  
“Well, I’m not,” Kayleigh assured her. “I don’t think I ever could be disappointed in someone who won’t back down until they’ve done what they set out to accomplish.”  
  
Kayleigh just smiled and nodded. No one had ever wanted to hear Esther’s last words, and she wanted to hear them without hesitation. She swung down off the platform and settled in one of the front seats. Expectantly, she watched the stage and Esther as she drew up her senses. Putting herself into position, Esther inhaled deeply.  
  
“Then this final song is for you,” Esther said, raising her voice, “and everyone else here.”  
  
And Kayleigh could imagine the seats filled with a sea of admiring onlookers feasting their eyes on the stage in anticipation. It was a world where fire and smoke encased the world and everyone was free. The messages of one woman reached them, and everyone was happy and protected.  
  
Esther sang and skittered across the stage in delicate and elegance. High and dulcet tones rung through the theater like flowers blooming for the first time in the sunlit spring. Kayleigh was the only one who could hear her, but that was enough.  
  
After all, the show must go on until there was not one single dry eye in the house.


End file.
